/ 



THE 

" CIENCE 

OF 



s 



THOUGHT 



AN INTRODUCTION 



TO THE 



SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 



3 



g S^V^HEBBERD. 



3 

MADISON, 



wis. : 



TRACY, GIBBS & CO., PUBLISHERS. 
1892. 



h» 



■Fter* 



*%■«>■* 



THE LIBRARY 
OF CONGRESS 

WAIHINOTOW 



l8Q2. 

Copyrighted by S. S. HEBBERD. 



V 



PREFACE. 



Knowing how little interest the present age takes 
in philosophy, I have compressed this book *into the 
smallest possible compass. What might well have 
been expanded into a volume, I have condensed into 
a chapter, and often into a page. I shall probably be 
accused, upon this very account, of a slight and pre- 
sumptuous treatment of great themes. It is right, 
therefore, for me to add in self defense that I have 
spent a quarter of a century in the discovery and 
demonstration of what is here presented in less than 
a hundred pages. 

S. S. Hebberd. 

Viroqua, Wis., Aug. 12, iSp2. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter I. Self-Consciousness. 

II. Perception. 

III. Space. 

IV. Concepts. 
V. Science. 

VI. Morality. 

VII. Art. 

VIII. Pagan Civilization. 

IX. Christian Civilization. 



SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 



CHAPTER I. 
SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 

All thinking is a relating of cause and effect. 
The present treatise is designed to demonstrate this 
simple principle — to show that every perfect thought, 
from the simplest to the most complex, contains two 
elements related to each other as cause and effect; 
and that whenever either of these elements is sup- 
pressed, thought thereby becomes vague, one-sided, 
fatally defective. In this synthesis, the very nature 
of thought consists. 

But although this principle is so simple, it will be 
found to be of immeasurable value. It will put an 
end to the chief disputes which have heretofore di- 
vided and distracted human speculation; it will furnish 
a basis for true theories of science, morality and art; 
it will explain the course of human civilization and so 
provide a genuine philosophy of history. 

To verify our principle we must begin with self-con- 
sciousness, the most immediate and universal of all 
forms of thinking. 

Seeking an unassailable definition of self-conscious- 
ness, I affirm it to be the immediate knowledge of our 
mental states as onr own. They are thought of as our 



8 



SCIENCE 01 l BOUGHT. 



own, not only in the sense of mere possession but of 

active control; up to a certain point they come at our 
call and go at our bidding; we are, partially at least, 
their producing and controlling cause. It is this im- 
mediate reference of mental states to self as their 
cause, which forms the very essence of self -conscious- 
ness, distinguishing it from all other kinds of activity, 
mental or physical. And in this process are manifestly 
the two factors which our law demands. Self-con- 
sciousness is the relating of self to mental states as 
the one, permanent cause of many, transitory effects. 

It follows, therefore, from our principle, that nei- 
ther of these two elements which together form the 
conception of self-consciousness, can be fully thought 
or known apart from the other. The cause can be 
known only in and through its effects; and conversely, 
the effect only in and through its cause. Self in itself, 
a mental state in itself, each of these is but a half- 
thought, vague, mutilated, unintelligible. Every the- 
ory of self-consciousness which attempts to suppress 
either of the two elements must end in incoherent and 
divisive thought. This deduction is wonderfully ver- 
ified by the history of speculation, as we shall show 
by two leading instances. 

(i). Hume's famous formula thatthere isno conscious- 
ness save of a series of mental states, attempts to 
eliminate the causal element. But his statement, in 
the effort to expunge the conception of self, has taken 
all meaning out of the conception of conscious states. 
For, firstly, it ignores memory, the very core of con- 
sciousness — the power present in every mental state 



SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. 9 

of reproducing the past; secondly, in suppressing the 
sense of identity, it takes away all that can distin- 
guish a conscious from an unconscious state; thirdly, 
it is in the last resort an altogether unintelligible state- 
ment — to speak of a disconnected series as aware of 
itself as a series, is to utter a combination of sounds 
without a shred of meaning. 

But why waste time in arguing against a definition 
of conscious states which even its author has confessed 
to be unintelligible ? "All my hopes vanish," Hume 
said, "when I come to explain the principles which 
unite our successive perceptions in ourconsciousness." 
J. S. Mill, although adopting the same view, goes 
even further and admits that the theory "involves a 
paradox;" that "it cannot be expressed in any terms 
which do not deny its truth." He does, indeed, at- 
tempt to qualify this confession by adding that self- 
consciousness is an ultimate fact and therefore inex- 
plicable, but even if a fact is ultimate and inexplic- 
able, it by no means follows that the statement of 
the fact must be unintelligible. By no such salvo can 
Mill break the force of his admission that any exposi- 
tion of conscious states which does not refer them to 
self as their cause, is so utterly unintelligible that it 
cannot even be expressed in any terms which do not 
deny its truth. Effects cannot be known except in and 
through their cause. 

(2). Kant's exposition, on the other hand, wonder- 
fully confirms the second part of our law, that in re- 
gard to the knowledge of causes. He affirms, in a 
somewhat bewildered way, the unity of self-conscious- 



io scn.v !■; oi- Tiiorcii r. 

ness. But he hastens to add that this unity is purely 
"logical," or "formal," that "the notion of self is an 
altogether empty one." And to prove this, he argues 

long and laboriously that self cannot be conceived as 
substance. Hut when he has established this point, 
he has done- nothing but confirm our law that a cause 
cannot be known in itself, but only in and through its 
effects. A substance can be known not in itself, 
but only through the sensuous attribute or effects 
which it produces. .And similarly, self can be known 
only in and through its effects — through that vast and 
varied host of mental states which it creates or con- 
trols. It is in vain, therefore, that any one at- 
tempts to define self in terms of substance, or in any 
other way, except as the one permanent cause of our 
many transient, mental states. 

Our law is verified in both its parts so far as self- 
conciousness is concerned. It is necessary, however, 
to lay the chief stress on that part which relates to 
the knowledge of effects. Ever since the days of 
Kant, thinkers have found it easy to perceive that a 
cause in itself — self, substance or thing — is unknowable. 
Hut they have not been taught to perceive also that 
effects in themselves — conscious states, sensuous attri- 
butes or phenomena — are equally unknowable. The 
future of philosophy depends upon the clear recogni- 
tion of the fact that no complete thought or real knowl- 
edge is possible unless both elements — the cause and 
the effect — are combined in that synthesis which the 
nature of thinking demands. 



CHAPTER II. 
PERCEPTION. 

Philosophy in its search after a true theory of per- 
ception has been driven to a strange pass. The most 
universal and unconquerable conviction of mankind — 
the belief in the reality of an external world — proves 
to be the very one which most completely defies phil- 
osophic explanation. Speculation has finally split in- 
to two schools, the one regarding the belief in external 
reality as a mere illusion, the other regarding it as an 
utter mystery, an inexplicable intuition or instinct 
coming no one knows whence or how. No wonder 
that philosophy is in disgrace. 

But surely there must be some way out of this 
wilderness of controversy and bewilderment; and we 
hope to show that there is. 

Certain of our mental states are, mainly at least, the 
products of our own activity; we imagine, we remember 
we will this thing or that as we please. But our per- 
ceptive states are not thus self-produced; we are con- 
scious that they are given to us, not formed by us; 
there is a regular recurrence of the parts and a fixed 
order of the whole which no mental effort can change. 
And therefore we are compelled by the very nature of 
thought to ascribe these perceptive states to some 
causality not our own. 

This conviction of an external causality is absolutely 
universal, immediate and primordial. It is not an 



12 SCIENCE OF THOUCIIN. 

intuition- one of those instinctive beliefs or innate- 
ideas of which the world long since grew weary. It 
is not an inference, since there is before it, no prior 
judgment from which it lias been derived. It is but 
a restatement of the fact given in consciousness that 
certain states are not produced by self; and the 
equivalence of the two statements is involved in the 
very nature of thought. It lies at the beginning of 
consciousness; it is enfolded in the first completed act 
of perception. 

Let me not be misunderstood. Consciousness in 
itself, gives us nothing beyond this fact of a causality 
not our own. What that causality is — what are its 
defining characteristics — cannot be thus primordially 
and infallibly determined, but must be learned through 
the processes of the understanding. This external 
source of perception may be the supreme spirit of the 
Berkeleian metaphysics; it maybe the famous "Thing 
in itself" of the Kantian philosophy; it may be that 
bright world of living reality which common sense is 
so loath to give up. These questions pure conscious- 
ness does not pretend to settle. 

It may seem that we have made but slight progress 
towards the attainment of a complete theory of per- 
ception. But at least we have put an end, forever, 
to subjective idealism. This paradoxical doctrine, 
under whatsoever elusive forms it may veil itself, is 
essentially nothing more than a denial of all external 
causality. But as we have seen, the fact of a causal- 
ity not our own, is immediately and universally given 
us in self-consciousness; and therefore it cannot be 



PERCEPTION. 13 

really disbelieved by any one. Hence subjective 
idealism is but a verbal negation of what no one can 
actually doubt; its doctrine cannot be fully thought 
out or expressed except in terms which deny its 
truth. All the subjective idealists — like Fichte for 
instance, with his "limitations of self-consciousness" — 
have been finally compelled to assume what they 
were attempting to contradict. 



To recognize that external causality is immediately 
given us in consciousness — this is the first step to- 
wards a true theory of knowledge. The second step 
consists in clearing away the difficulties and perplex- 
ities that have been raised by objective idealism. 
That doctrine, — at least in the fully developed form 
given it by Kant, — denies, not the existence, but the 
knowableness of external causality. It teaches that 
substances, things in themselves, lie beyond the limits 
of human knowledge. We can know only phenomena, 
attributes, the effects produced by the unknowable 
cause or causes. 

We can gladly accept that part of the idealistic 
doctrine which affirms the unknowableness of sub- 
stance or things in themselves; for that*is but an an- 
ticipation of our own fundamental law. A cause can 
be known only in or through its effects. Nothing is 
more utterly unknowable than "pure existence," a 
"thing in itself," a substance divested of all its at- 
tributes. 

But idealism has been utterly blind to the other 
half of this fundamental law; it has not seen that 



14 SCIENCE OF THOUGH! . 

effects also are known only In and through their 
causes. While insisting that substances or things 

in themselves are unknowable-, it has silently claimed 
to have a clear, sun-lit knowledge of effects — attri- 
butes, phenomena, sensations — in themselves. Rut 
this, as I shall now show, is an amazing illusion. 
So far as there can be any difference of degree, the 
sensation or effect in itself is even more inscrutable 
than tlie cause in itself. 

Firstly, let us consider sensations in their general 
nature. In vision, for instance, we have some dim 
glimpses of a process of causation passing from the 
object seen to the mind. Rut this causal process 
ends in complete mystery. We have not the slight- 
est knowledge of the effect finally produced upon the 
mind. The perfected perception has no character of 
internality or ideality; on the contrary, the vision ap- 
pears to be entirely external and spatial. Somehow, 
the cause and the effect have come to be inexplicably 
conjoined. 

• Secondly, consider sensations in their specific char- 
acteristics. Do we know aught of the difference be- 
tween them? The effect produced upon the mind by 
a round object, for instance, is this sensation itself 
circular? Is the sensation of sweetness itself sweet ? 
Is the sensation of a mountain any taller than the sen- 
sation of an ant-hill? In a word, sensations in them- 
selves have no definable characteristics; they are 
knowable only when related to their causes. In a 
complete and distinct perception, two vague, unin- 



PERCEPTION. 15 

telligible half-ideas — the one of a producing cause, 
the other of its effect — are inseparably combined. 

Thirdly, consider the grouping of sensations. Two 
or more sensations are brought to the mind through 
different channels; one, for instance, through the 
sense of sight, another through that of touch. Their 
union in one perception must ever remain unintelli- 
gible, unless we conceive of them as different effects 
of a common cause or object. 

Fourthly, the same fact is shown in the recurrence 
of sensations. Every sensation carries with it the con- 
viction that it will be invariably repeated under simi- 
lar circumstances; and this characteristic also remains 
incomprehensible except we regard all these actual or 
possible sensations as the many transient effects of one 
permanent cause. 

It has been proved, then, in this four-fold way, that 
we have just as little knowledge of effects or phenom- 
ena in themselves as we have of causes or things in 
themselves. Thus the whole ground of idealistic ag- 
nosticism is swept away. We see that so long as we 
disrupt the two elements of thought and insist upon 
regarding either apart from the other, we can have 
only mystery, confusion and unknowableness. Knowl- 
edge begins when we combine substance and attribute, 
the "thing in itself" and its phenomena, in the rela- 
tion of cause and effect. To doubt the existence of 
the one is as irrational as to doubt the existence of 
the other. 



in SCIEN( I. < >I THOUGHT. 

A third step still remains before reaching a com- 
plete theory <>f perceptive knowledge. The question 
is continually asked: How do we know that our per- 
ceptions correspond with external reality? The qu 
tion is unanswerable; and that for the simple reason 
that there is no such correspondence. 1'erccptive 
knowledge does not consist in the tracing of resem- 
blances between objects so diverse as mental states 
and the external world. 

Perception, on the contrary, is a process of discrim- 
ination. Consciousness, as we have seen, gives to us 
the infallible assurance of an external causality. It is 
the province of perception to break up this causality 
into its constituent parts, each duly related to its ap- 
propriate effects. 

But what guarantee have we, it may be asked, of 
the accuracy of this discriminating process? I an- 
swer that the guarantee is five-fold. First, there is 
the uniform recurrence of precisely similar perceptions, 
and thereby we are enabled to relate them to the same 
permanent cause. Secondly, we are able to repeat 
perceptions at will, and thus to experiment, as it were, 
upon their producing causes. Thirdly, we can com- 
pare perceptions received through one organ of sense 
with those received through another — those of sight 
with those of touch, for instance. Fourthly, and most 
important of all, we soon learn to discriminate with 
ease and certainty, between our own bodies and the 
rest of the external world; and thus are provided with 
an instrument and an unerring test of all subsequent 
discriminations. Fifthly, all these guarantees may be 
combined so a,s to strengthen and support each other. 



PERCEPTION. 17 

The evidence of the senses, then, is strong and 
overwhelming, but let us remember that it is not in- 
fallible. Too great confidence in perception has ever 
been one of the chief causes of human ignorance. And 
a certain idealistic distrust of the senses, as will be 
shown hereafter, has been the indispensable prepara- 
tion for that scientific research which changes the first 
crude perceptions of mankind into a more exact but 
still defective view of the universe. 

Corollary 1. A certain school of philosophy declares 
perception to be an ultimate, indecomposable act de- 
fying all analysis. But we have now analyzed it. And 
besides upon its very surface perception appears as 
exceedingly complex. There is first the idea of a per- 
ceiving self, then of a peculiar mode of mental activ- 
ity, then of an object perceived; and all these inter- 
acting in an endless variety of subtile implications. 
To pronounce all this complexity to be simple is plain- 
ly the last refuge of distressed philosophers. 

Corollary 2. Sir Wm Hamilton and others assert 
that they are conscious of external objects. This 
amazing doctrine must not be confounded with that 
of these pages. I have taught that we are conscious 
of a certain element in our perceptive states as not 
produced by self; and that, therefore, we are com- 
pelled — not by any instinct or intuition, but by the 
very nature of thought — to instantly and infallibly as- 
cribe this element to a causality not our own. But 
that is very different from teaching that we are con- 
scious of stars, or sticks, or pictures upon the retina. 



CHAPTER III. 
SPACE. 

The idea of space has long been one ol the chief 

battle-grounds of philosophy. By one party it has 
been regarded as a mere mental creation, by the 
other as the idea of something actually existent; and 
even the last must be conscious that their conception 
of space as a reality is, somehow, exceedingly vague 
and elusive. Let us see now what light our principle 
can throw upon this darkened field of debate. 

The conception of space is evidently compounded of 
two elements. On the one side is the idea of pure 
space, one, continuous, unchanging, unlimited; on the 
other we have the idea of positions, distances, figures 
and all the other countless spatial relations. 

Furthermore, these two elements are related to 
each other as cause and effect. All possible spatial 
or geometrical relations can be reduced to one gen- 
eral formula; each of them is, essentially, a separation 
of points or things by space. These countless separa- 
tions between bodies cannot be thought of or made 
intelligible save as resulting from the existence of 
one continuous and infinite space; they are the many, 
transient effects of one permanent cause. 

But it will instantly be objected that spatial rela- 
tions are not effects, but merely parts of space. A 
figure, it will be said, for instance, is but a certain 
definite part of space cut out from the indefinite re- 



SPACE. 19 

mainder. But the objection is grounded upon a 
strange, although quite universal oversight. It is 
forgotten that space can really have no parts; we are 
compelled to think of it as absolutely continuous, and, 
therefore, indivisible. If space could be separated 
into two or more parts, what would separate them ? 
The so-called parts of space are pure fictions, invented 
by the mind for its own convenience in measuring 
bodies; but, while using these fictions, the mind is 
fully aware that parts of space cannot really exist. 
Therefore, spatial relations cannot be clearly and 
exactly conceived as parts of a whole, but only as 
effects of a cause. Distances, positions, dimensions, 
directions and all other geometrical properties are the 
many, ever-changing relations established between 
bodies by infinite, continuous and unchanging space. 
Once again then our doctrine has proved impreg- 
nable. Every spatial conception has been shown to 
contain two elements. And only thus does space — 
that obscurest and most perplexing of words — gain a 
clear, consistent meaning. 



Is space then actually existent? May it not be, 
after all, a mere abstraction — an ideal phantasm 
which floats in nothingness? The mind, it may be 
said, establishes spatial relations between bodies, and 
if the bodies cease to exist, so will the relations be- 
tween them. All that is true enough; but it shoots 
far and wide from the mark. The bodies may vanish 
and with them their spatial relations. But the space 
which produced that relationship will remain undis- 



20 SCIENi i l >\ i BOUGHT. 

turbed. Two stars might burn themselves out; but 
the- immensity of distance, the extent of space which 
once separated them would not be changed a hair's- 
breadth. And if the whole material universe should 
be blotted out, infinite space would still remain, one, 
continuous, unchanging, as before. In fact the ol 
ion serves only to bring out vividly our view of spatial 
relations as the many transitory effects of one perma- 
nent cause. 

It is then absolutely impossible to think of space as 
non-existent. Let us understand the full force and 
sweep of this declaration. If it was merely some 
mental instinct or "intuition" or Kantian "form of 
sense" that compelled us to think of the world as spa- 
tial, then it would be easy enough to conceive of some 
higher grade of mind as free from this mysterious 
compulsion imposed upon us; and so it would be very 
far from being impossible for us to think of space as 
non-existent. But we have shown that we are compel- 
led, not by any intuition or form of sense, but by the 
very nature of thought, to conceive of space as a cause 
of all spatial relations. And to think away whatever 
is demanded by the very nature of thought, is, in the 
fullest sense of the term, absolutely impossible; not 
even archangels could accomplish that feat. 



Any thoughtful reader arrived at our present point 
of view, can readily meet Kant's proofs of the ideality 
of space. But it may be well to briefly notice one of 
these alleged proofs — the geometrical argument. 



SPACE. 2 1 

Experience, Kant urges, concerns only the con- 
tingent; it can therefore never give the universal and 
necessary judgments of geometry. It can assure us, 
for instance, that two lines are parallel so far as we 
have examined them, but not that they would con- 
tinue to be parallel if prolonged through infinite 
space. Such judgments are possible, only because 
space is not objective — for then we could know it only 
contingently through experience — but purely subject- 
ive, a merely ideal construction imposed upon things 
by the mind. 

But this, besides being paradoxical, explains noth- 
ing. It is flat tautology. It simply asserts that that 
must be true for us which we are compelled by the 
mysterious conformation of our minds to think as true. 

From our present point of view the real explana- 
tion is easily found. Pure space is never the cause of 
change; on the contrary it is the cause or ground of the 
very opposite of change — that is, of separation and posi- 
tion or relative fixedness. Therefore, the ideal rela- 
tions of pure space, with which geometry deals, are 
invariable; and that for the simple reason that by 
hypothesis all causes of change arc excluded. Two 
parallel lines will maintain their parallelism through 
the whole infinitude of space, unless we should some- 
where mentally change the direction of one of them 
and so make three lines instead of two. 

Geometrical necessity has long been the great 
stumbling-block of both the rival philosophies. The 
sensationalists' doctrine that necessary truths come 
from " irresistible association " seems almost farcical. 



SCIENCE 01 I HOUGH! . 

The idealists having generally lost faith in their 
"innate ideas " and "intuitions," have taken refuge in 
Kant's paradox that space is ideal. Dispensing with 
all such strange devices, we have found geometrical 

isity to depend solely upon the nature of spa 
neither changing nor causing change. 

Corollary /. Dugald Stewart pointed out and it is 
about the only real gleam of light heretofore thrown 
upon the problem — that we more readily and clearly 
perceive the truth of the- particular instances embraced 
under an axiom, than the truth of the axiom itself. Now, 
if axioms were intuitions the converse of this would 
surely happen. Hut our doctrine explains the fact 
just as it stands. We clearly and instantaneously 
perceive the truth of the particular instance because 
it depends upon nothing but the nature of thought 
dealing with the idea of space-. The axiom, which is 
but an abstract and generalized statement of the par- 
ticular instances, comes later and is less clearly recog- 
nized. 

Corollary 2. Time is to be explained precisely as 
space has been. By following the explanation of 
space just given, the reader can readily work out the 
problem of time for himself. 



CHAPTER IV. 
CONCEPTS. 

Every concept has two meanings. The one is its 
meaning in intension, pointing out the characteristics 
of the class; the other its meaning in extension refer- 
ring to the different individuals or objects included 
within the class. All logicians have recognized and 
used this familiar distinction; but they have been 
strangely blind to its supreme importance as disclos- 
ing the inmost nature of the concept. It remains for 
me to show that these two meanings — these two con- 
stituent elements of every general notion — are related 
to each other as cause and effect. 

For, firstly, the intension of a concept determines 
its extension. What objects may be included within 
a class, depends upon the attributes of that class. 
The extension gives us objects classified; the intension 
points to the ground or cause of their classification. 
This by itself would be sufficient to prove our thesis; 
but we can go farther. We can show that the inten- 
sive meaning points to a dimly disclosed unity and 
permanence, the properties of causality; that the ex- 
tensive meaning points to a clearly apparent multi- 
plicity and change, the properties of effects. 

For, secondly, the intension is always a unit. That 
is so, of course, when the concept has but one at- 
tribute. And although a natural kind may have a 
countless number of attributes, they are always con- 



2 | S< IENCE I »i I HOUGHT. 

ceived as one set as a co-ordinated system as a 
unit}- so definitely fixed that from the presence oi a 

few of the attributes we can always infer the rest. 

The extension, on tin- contrary, refers to a mere mul- 
tiplicity, a multitude which never has hem and never 
can hi' brought together at one time <>r place. 

Thirdly, the intension is permanent* The set of 
attributes does not change from century to century; 
it is a combination of qualities fixed and uniform for 
every possible member of the class. Hut the exten- 
sion of a concept is the very type of variablene 
includes both the actual and the possible, things past, 
present and to come; it designates a multitude in 
continual flux. 

Fourthly, the intensive meaning is less apparent 
than the extensive. Hast}- and superficial thought 
always conceives of a class merely as a collection of 
objects; it continually loses sight of that deeper 
meaning of the concept, without which the first would 
be but mere nonsense. The history, of logical specu- 
lation for centuries has proved that. 

Every concept, therefore, contains two meanings 
related to each other as cause and effect. 

The exposition just given of the concept, has many 
uses. But above all else, it puts an end to that most 
ancient and perplexing of all logical controversies — 
the dispute between the Realists or their modern suc- 
cessors and the Nominalists. For it can now be shown 
that both of these rival systems are equally at fault, 
both equally one-sided and defective. 

Each of the two meanings of a concept must, by it- 



CONCEPTS. 25 

self, be vague, elusive and incomplete. Each forms 
but one-half or one side of a perfect concept; each be- 
comes fully intelligible only when related to the other. 
Now, both of the rival logical systems ignore, so far 
as possible, this double import of the concept. Nom- 
inalism lays an exclusive emphasis upon the meaning 
in extension. Realism orConceptualism — for the two 
differ in degree, not in kind — lays its emphasis upon 
the meaning in intension. Each, therefore, fails to 
give a true and adequate explanation of general no- 
tions. 

Realism and Conceptualism, revolving around the 
intensive meaning of the concept, have spun an amaz- 
ing web of subtilties. But the incomparable skill of 
Berkeley proved long ago that we cannot form any 
clear and complete idea of any attribute or set of at- 
tributes, isolated from the idea of some concrete ob- 
ject possessing that attribute or set of attributes. By 
no effort of thought can we form a full and distinct 
idea of "man" or of the human attributes apart from the 
idea of some individual man; or of "motions" inde- 
pendently of the idea of some moving body. All that 
is irrefragably true; and thereby the whole ground of 
Realism is swept away. These isolated abstractions, 
— these scholastic universals and "quiddities" and the 
more modern "bundles of attributes" — are but half- 
ideas which can exist in thought only in conjunction 
with their complements. Causes in themselves, un- 
related to their effects, are unknowable and unthink- 
able. 



26 SCIENl i 01 I HOUGH! . 

The Nominalist goes to the other extreme. In his 
zeal for the meaning in extension he paradoxically 
affirms that there are no general notions only gen- 
eral terms or common names for different objects. 
He forgets that a name could not be common to differ- 
ent objects unless they resembled each other in cer- 
tain respects. Therefore, even the common name 
has a double import : on the one side it points to dif- 
ferent objects; on the other to the respects in which 
they resemble each other. All this the Nominalist 
ignores; and so offers an explanation of the classify- 
ing process as utterly inadequate as it is paradoxical. 

Both the rival systems, then, are equally defective. 
Their controversy is a wrangle over opposite sides of 
the same truth. We shall never gain a true theory 
of classification until we recognize the double import 
of the concept, and remember that each of its two 
meanings is fully intelligible only when related to the 
other. 

We have proved our law, then, so far as concepts 
are concerned, and this would be sufficient, by itself, 
to prove it in regard to all processes of thought. 
For all thinking is carried on by means of concepts. 

Corollary i. This law of the complexity of con- 
cepts explains why language is indispensable for gen- 
uine thinking. On account of its double import, a 
concept cannot be clearly held before the mind, ex- 
cept through the intervention of a verbal sign. 

Corollary 2. Brutes have no language because 
they have need of none. They receive impressions 
from the outer world and doubtless these impressions 



CONCEPTS. 27 

are combined and transformed by something like the 
laws of association. In fact, I am inclined to believe 
that what "the association-philosophy" describes and 
explains as thinking, forms a pretty faithful picture of 
what takes place in the brain of the animal. . But 
there is no shadow of proof, or even of probability 
that a brute can form an idea — that is, a general no- 
tion with its synthesis of cause and effect. Therefore 
animals have no need of speech; nor could use it if 
possessed. 



CHAPTER V. 
SCIENCE. 

In considering the theory of reasoning, I shall pass 

by many minor questions to come to the most difficult 
and important one. What is the inductive or scien- 
tific method? That question has been often asked 
and never answered. Although the scientific method 
has been used so long and with such magnificent re- 
sults, there is something about it that has heretofore 
eluded description and defied analysis. And it may 
seem mere arrogance to attempt in four or five pages, 
the solution of a problem that has baffled the logical 
skill of centuries. But the light which has led us so 
far, will not desert us here. 

There are but two kinds of reasoning, deduction 
and induction; and both of them have a certain ap- 
pearance of imperfection and inadequateness. Deduc- 
tion, as every logician knows, has long labored under 
the reproach of being essentially nothing more than a 
begging of the question. The inference, it is said, 
really infers nothing; all that is affirmed in the conclu- 
sion has been already affirmed in the premises. The 
objection is difficult to answer; and even if we set it 
aside, we must still admit that deduction is an incom- 
plete and inadequate process. The chief value of 
syllogistic reasoning depends upon the accuracy of the 
premises, and with that the deduction has nothing to 
do. The deduction by itself is a singularly simple, a 



SCIENCE. 29 

purely formal and mechanical act which could proba- 
bly be done by a machine as well as by a human being. 
In mathematics, indeed, deductive reasoning has done 
marvelous things; but the* marvel is due to the human 
ingenuity which has combined a great number of sim- 
ple and trivial deductions into a complicated and 
splendid chain of reasoning; just as a beautiful build- 
ing may be constructed out of rude and diminutive 
stones. And the whole history of thought proves that 
outside the mathematical sciences, pure deduction 
tends to vain disputations and idle subtilities rather 
than to the discovery of truth. Thus logically and 
historically a syllogism is shown to be by itself a most 
imperfect and futile act of reasoning; it takes its prem- 
ises for granted, and then does nothing but formally 
and mechanically assert in the conclusion what it had 
already assumed in the premises. 

Pure induction is still more obviously defective. It 
carries a fallacy upon its very face; to conclude from 
particulars to universals is a plain violation of all logi- 
cal rules. The ingenuity of ages has failed to clear 
induction from this appearance of utter irrationality. 
No one has yet shown how in the actual, physical 
world purely contingent experience can be logically 
transmuted into universal and necessary law. More- 
over, history proves that pure induction is fatally mis- 
leading: the greater part of human ignorance and sup- 
erstition has sprung from this tendency of the mind 
to conclude from particulars to universals. 

Both deduction and induction, then, are equally de- 
fective and misleading. Logicians have long been 



30 SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

dimly aware of this fact, although for the credit of 
their science they have been inclined to ignore it or 
to obscure it by futile explanations. Hut there is no 
need of being alarmed at this, as if the very founda- 
tions of truth were about to be undermined. On the 
contrary, by the recognition of this fact, we are brought 
face to face with that fundamental law which governs 
the whole realm of thought and gives it perfection. 
Both causes by themselves and effects by themselves 
are unknowable; the effort to know them thus, results 
only in vague, inadequate half thoughts. And it inev- 
itably follows from this, that both pure deduction, or 
reasoning from causes alone, and pure induction, or 
reasoning from effects alone, are essentially imperfect 
and invalid processes. 

And thus we arrive at the long-sought definition of 
the scientific method. Exact knowledge or science 
can be attained only by a synthesis of deduction and 
induction whereby each of these two processes, by it- 
self defective, is strengthened and supported by the 
other. The scientific method consists in such a syn- 
thesis. 

The first process is one of pure induction from par- 
ticulars to universals. We observe that a certain co- 
existence or sequence of phenomena is uniformly re- 
peated; and this observed uniformity we boldly trans- 
form into a law. Thus empirical rules are formed, 
often crude and dubious, but sometimes attaining to a 
high degree of certainty. Hut still something is lack- 
ing. The deep chasm between an empirical rule and 



SCIENCE. 31 

a universal law can be closed only by the second pro- 
cess of the scientific method. 

The second process is deductive; it seeks the cause 
of these observed uniformities; in otherwords it strives 
to deduce the empirical rule from some more univer- 
sal law. Now, if this wider law has been already es- 
tablished, the matter is simple enough; but in many 
cases this is not so. Often the cause is but hypothe- 
tical, merely a mathematical formula from which the 
empirical rules or facts may be deduced. And the 
question arises, how scientific certainty is gained 
through this subsumption of the minor laws under the 
more universal one? I answer, firstly, a wider interde- 
pendenceof phenomena is thereby established; and thus 
mere co-incidence is less apt to be mistaken for invar- 
iable and necessary order. Secondly, exceptions are 
gotten rid of; what is inexplicable by the minor empir- 
ical rule, often admits of ready explanation under the 
light of the universal law. Thirdly and most impor- 
tant of all, qualitative laws are thus converted into 
quantitative ones. It is the noblest characteristic of 
nature— one to which we owe almost all our real knowl- 
edge of her secrets — that her deepest and widest laws 
are mathematical. In chemistry, for instance, the 
most intricate and obscure qualitative differences have 
been almost magically resolved into simple equa-. 
tions of quantity. Thus, a vast increase of cer- 
tainty is gained. For uniformities of quantity, of 
weight or distance can be measured with the utmost 
minuteness; so that a single observation agreeing with 



32 SCIENCE « »i I M< lUGHl . 

a mathematical computation becomes of far more value 
than a hundred co-existences oi mere quality. 

Such then is the scientific method. It is com- 
pounded of two elements or processes induction and 
deduction— each by itself imperfect and invalid, but 
together forming a perfect act of scientific reasoning. ' 

In a word, the scientific method is like an arch, nei- 
ther side of which could stand if it were not supported 
by the other. 

To follow out all the applications of this theory 
of science would demand a volume instead of these 
few pages. I can pause only to note that our doctrine 
will be signally verified in the chapters upon civiliza- 
tion. It will then be found to solve that chief prob- 
lem in the history of science — the utter failure of ar- 
tiquity except at Alexandria, in the study of Nature; 
and the swift, wondrous triumph of modern scientific 
research. But our present object has been fully ac- 
complished. The principle that thinking is com- 
pounded of two elements, each inadequate without the 

l It may be objected to our doctrine of the inadequacy of deduction; 
that mathematical science is entirely deductive. But, that is, although 
a very common, an erroneous view. The chief toil of the mathe- 
matician is inductive or inventive, the finding of his premises. 
In algebra, for instance, and generally in the higher and applied math- 
ematics — the work is nearly done when the proper equation is formed; 
that is, when the particular instance or problem has been put under 
some universal formula or equation. And the resolution of a com- 
mon equation — that is, the deductive part — is an almost mechanical 
process. In geometry all this is greatly obscured, because its ordinary 
study is confined chiefly to following and memorizing what has been 
already done. But in the formation of geometry — and in its proper 
study too — the chief matter was the statement of its problems, the 
finding out by experiment of the premises from which to deduce. 



SCIENCE. 33 

other, has been vindicated so far as scientific reason- 
ing is concerned. All perfect thought from the sim- 
plest act of perception up to the most elaborate pro- 
cesses of scientific research, has been found to have a 
common nature and to be governed by one fundamen- 
tal law. 
3 



CIIAI'TKK VI. 

MORALITY. 

Morality is compounded of two elements — the con- 
sciousness of causality and the foresight of conse- 
quences. A true ethical system would hold both of 
these elements in that perfect synthesis which the 
nature of thought demands. But instead of that we 
find moralists divided into two rival schools, each of 
which emphasizes what the other ignores. On the 
one side are the realists ignoring and even denying the 
consciousness of causality ; on the other are the ideal- 
ists eager to construct an ethical theory that shall 
ignore, so far as possible, the consequences of conduct. 
Thus both systems become equally one-sided and de- 
fective ; controversy and confusion reign everywhere 
in ethical philosophy. 

Seeking now a way out of this confusion, let us be- 
gin with the doctrine of the realists. These deny the 
human consciousness of self-causality, upon two gen- 
eral grounds which we will consider in turn. 

(i) The realists assert that self-causality is incon- 
ceivable. The self, according to Jonathan Edwards 
and others of his school, cannot be the determining 
cause of its own volitions, because "it is inconceivable 
that the same cause in the same circumstances should 
produce different effects at different times. " The mind 
can act only in that way in which it has been deter- 
mined to act by antecedent circumstances. 



MORALITY. 35 

But this alleged inconceivability is a mere prejudice 
and an utter delusion. It is true enough that no 
material thing can act in different ways under the 
same conditions ; for, being unconscious, it cannot 
present before itself the two courses of action between 
which it would have to decide. Its act must be de- 
termined for it by something beyond itself. But it is 
simply absurd to assume that because this is true in 
regard to unconscious being, it must also be true in 
regard to conscious being. Does the fact that beings 
without eyes are unable to see, prove that beings with 
eyes are also unable to see? No more does the fact 
that the unconscious cannot determine itself, prove that 
the conscious cannot determine itself. 

The assertion that self-causality is inconceivable, 
has its origin in a double error. In the first place, 
the realist mistakes the incomprehensibility of a 
method for the inconceivableness of a fact. It is, in- 
deed, incomprehensible how a conscious being deter- 
mines itself to either one of two possible courses of 
action. But it is equally incomprehensible how the 
unconscious is determined to act by something without 
itself. In the last resort it is always inscrutable how 
things happen ; we only know that they do happen. 

The realist, in the second place, is infatuated with 
a passion for annulling all distinctions between mental 
and physical phenomena. It is unendurable, he thinks, 
that there should be such a contrast between physical 
and moral causation. But he forgets that this differ- 
ence is necessarily involved in the difference between 
the unconscious and the* conscious. The first, as we 



36 SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

have seen, cannot determine itself, because it is uncon- 
scious ; the second can determine itself, because it is 

conscious. Surely then, there is nothing anomalous 
and much less anything inconceivable — in tin's differ- 
ence between physical and moral causation. 

There does not appear to be the slightest ground, 

then, for the assertion that free causation is inconceiv- 
able. And yet this assertion is continually being 
made as if it were a self-evident truth. 

(2) A second argument exultantly used by those 
who deny self-causality is the argument from motives. 
They affirm that every moral act must be preceded by 
a motive ; as Sir William Hamilton has tersely said : 
"A motiveless act is rationally and morally worthless." 
All that may gladly be conceded. But because every 
moral act must have a motive, it by no means follows 
that the act must be determined or necessitated by 
the motive. And secondly, if it were thus determined, 
it would have no moral worth. If an act without a 
motive is morally worthless, so also is an act mechani- 
cally determined by a motive. 

This refutation is summary, but it is unanswerable. 
The object of this volume, however, is not to merely 
refute fallacies, but to explain them ; and so something 
must here be added. Every volition contains, in fact, 
is developed from, a motive 1 ; but the mind itself de- 

1 This explains that favorite catch used by the determinists as a 
last resort : I cannot act so and so unless I wish to ; the wish or desire 
therefore is the antecedent (See Mills Examination of Hamilton's 
Philosophy II. 285 and Logic 524, for examples). Of course I cannot 
will unless I wish to ; since the volition is but the developed wish. 
But it by no means follows that I cannot will unless I am compelled to. 



MORALITY. 37 

termines whether that development shall take place or 
not. This the necessitarian denies ; he considers the 
development of a motive into a volition to be a problem 
in mechanics. The motive, he thinks, passes into the 
volition mechanically, because it is "stronger" or 
"weightier" than any other desire present in the mind. 
But why does he make this strange assumption? Con- 
scious experience certainly tells him nothing about the 
mechanical strength or weight of motives, or that they 
are thus mechanically developed into volition. It 
teaches the exact contrary. 

Why then, I repeat, does the necessitarian make 
this assumption? Simply because he is still entangled 
in the meshes of the first fallacy treated in this chap- 
ter. It is inconceivable to him how the conscious can 
act differently from the unconscious — how the conscious 
self can act at all unless it is mechanically determined 
to act by something not itself. And therefore he goes 
on repeating that it must be the superior "weight" or 
"strength" of the desire which compels the mind to 
develop it into a volition. 

The whole necessitarian argument thus resolves it- 
self into a single fallacy. All its elusive proofs and 
winding subtilities revolve around the assumption that 
conscious or free causality is inconceivable. In a 
word, necessitarian morality is but a phase of that 
one-sided realistic tendency which ignores the cause 
and dwells only upon the effect. 1 

1 I have not noticed a third necessitarian argument — that from 
the predictibility of conduct — on account of its excessive vagueness. 
It is true that when a person's character is known his future conduct 



38 S< IEN< l. OF THOUGHT. 

The idealists, then, arc right in affirming that the 

mind is conscious of its own causality. And in affirm- 
ing this they furnish the basis, at least, oi a true moral 
system. 

For, the idea of right and wrong, as distinguished 
from the idea of the expedientand the inexpedient, is 
necessarily involved in this consciousness of self-caus- 
ality. Because we arc the free causes of our actions, 
we know that we arc responsible for them ; and that 
not in the merely legal sense that we are liable to 
punishment, but in the moral sense that we deserve 
punishment. We not only fear that we shall be pun- 
ished, but we recognize that we ought to be. To the 
mere fear of consequences is added the bitterness 
remorse or self-reproach. We say to ourselves : It is 
just ; I deserve this suffering ; I have brought it upon 
myself. In this feeling of moral responsibility or 
desert, the idea of right and wrong is rooted. 

No system, whi'ch denies our consciousness of self- 
causality, can ever logically pass from the idea of the 
expedient to the idea of the right. It can give to us 
the foresight and fear of consequences, but never the 
sense of desert and true moral responsibility. All its 
ingenious sophistries can never bridge the impassable 
chasm between the mere fear that we shall be punished 
and the conviction that we ought to be punished. If 
we are driven into suffering, as the winds and stars 

may be guessed — not by any means predicted in the scientific sense of 
the word. But this proves only what no one denies. The mind is 
continually yielding to these influences, habit, heredity, or environ- 
ment. But the sane mind is never compelled thus to yield. 



MORALITY. 39 

are driven in their courses by causes beyond their 
control, we may shrink from the pain, but we shall 
have no more sense of guilt than the winds and stars 
have. Recoil from pain is not the sense of desert. 

Up to this point then, idealism is abundantly justi- 
fied. But it is fatally defective and one-sided in that 
it ignores, so far as possible, the other element of mor- 
ality, the foresight of consequences. For moral laws, 
just as much as physical ones, can be established only 
by experience, by" the study of effects or consequences. 
One cannot but smile at the futile endeavors of the 
idealists to evolve ethical precepts from their inner 
consciousness, from "intuitions;" or some other mys- 
tical a priori process of thought. All history demon- 
strates the vanity of such endeavors. Everywhere, 
among different races and in different ages we behold 
a vast diversity and variation of moral judgments. 
And such uniformity as we do find, is manifestly the 
result, not of "intuition," but of that moral training to 
which society subjects its members from childhood to 
old age. 

The utilitarians or realists, then, are right when 
they insist that the only test or criterion of conduct is 
its consequences. The consciousness of causality gives 
us the universal idea of right or wrong ; but it does 
not tell us how that universal idea is to be applied to 
particular actions. In regard to that, experience is 
our only teacher. True moral laws can be established 
only by closely observing the effects of conduct upon 
human happiness. A morality that attempts to estab- 
lish its precepts in any other way, will necessarily be 



40 SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

wreak, vague, confused and fantastic. It will lack a 
correct appreciation of the different virtues. It will 
not have that moral vigor which comes only from clear 
and exact perceptions of moral truth. It may be per- 
vaded by a deep sense of sin and of responsibility to 
the higher powers, but it will be very poorly fitted to 
meet the actual needs of human life. All that is clearly 
evident from the very nature of the case ; and it will 
be remarkably verified in the chapters upon the history 
of civilization. 

Our fundamental law, then, is again vindicated. 
Both the old ethical theories are mutilated, one-sided 
systems, because each ignores one or the other of the 
two indispensable elements of thought. The true 
theory will combine both elements, cause and effect. 
It will recognize the consciousness of causality as fur- 
nishing the only basis of morality ; and the foresight 
of consequences as establishing moral rules and thus 
providing the ethical superstructure. The result will 
not be a barren eclecticism selecting its doctrines at 
random, but a true ethical system governed by that 
law which rules the whole world of thought. 



CHAPTER VII. 
ART. 

Hardly any one will deny that there is as yet no 
science of the beautiful. Many aesthetic theories have 
been advanced, received with favor by some, rejected 
by others, and then have passed into oblivion. But 
despite all these failures, an aesthetic science is still 
possible. The principle which has been found to rule 
in every other realm of thought, rules here also. And 
it will enable us to define the nature of beauty, to 
discover that common characteristic in all beautiful 
things which imparts to them their charm. Thus we 
shall have, at last, the basis of a true aesthetic science. 

We have seen that there are two intellectual tenden- 
cies, each representative of one side or element of 
perfected thought. The one tendency is absorbed in 
the contemplation of effects, is intent upon that ap- 
pearance of multiplicity and change so visible upon 
the very surface of things ; the other tendency seeks 
rather for causes — for that manifestation of power, 
unity and permanence which is not so apparent indeed, 
but still is exhibited in every part of the universe. 
Both of these forms of mental activity are to a certain 
extent pleasurable ; and the pleasures attendant upon 
them, we may call for lack of better terms, the one, 
realistic, the other, idealistic emotion. 

Let it now be noted that each of these pleasures is, 
by itself, transient, and so essentially imperfect that 



42 SCIENCE OB THOUGH I ". 

it is ever liable to pass into a pain. We arc pie; 
for a while, by variety and novelty ; but the mind 
grows bewildered, distracted and irritated by the con- 
fusion and din of mere change. There is a certain 
charm also in the recognition of causal power with its 
unity and invariableness ; but very soon this uniform 
order becomes for us a tedious, Oppressive and insuf- 
ferable monotony. Each feeling, then, by itself, is 
defective, spasmodic, powerless to impart full and 
abiding enjoyment. Hut when the two feelings are 
combined, so as to relieve and support each other, we 
have that most exalted of all emotions— tranquil and 
sustained delight in the beautiful. 

These two balanced feelings, it will be remembered, 
differ ; firstly, in their objects, power, unity and per- 
manence upon the one side, multiplicity and change 
upon the other; secondly, in the fact that the percep- 
tion is more obscure in the one case than the other. 
This understood, we have the definition so long sought 
but never found. The beautiful is that which harmon- 
izes realistic and idealistic emotion. 

It remains now to verify this aesthetic theory by 
showing, first, that it will explain the chief aesthetic 
rules and convictions which have long been empirically 
recognized in the world of art ; and secondly, that it 
will also satisfactorily account for the emotions of the 
ludicrous and the sublime — those half-sisters, as it 
were, of the beautiful. 






(i) The curve has always been recognized as the 
line of beauty. This first and most comprehensive 



ART. 43 

rule of aesthetic form has heretofore been empirically 
accepted as an ultimate, inexplicable fact ; but from 
our present point of view it readily submits to analy- 
sis and explanation. For, the curve has two essential 
characteristics; first, it is a line continually changing 
its direction; second, these incessant changes are gov- 
erned by a simple and invariable law. It is thus the 
perfect type of that balance between the two elements 
of thought which our law demands. It is neither 
straight nor crooked, nor partially the one and par- 
tially the other, nor any other absurd equation of con- 
tradictories. It is perfect order and perfect change 
related to each other as cause and effect. The curved 
line, in a word, is the visible embodiment of the prin- 
ciple of all beauty and of all perfected thought. 

We may go farther in our analysis and thereby ex- 
plain the different aesthetic values of different kinds of 
curvation. Thus, according to Hogarth, "the serpen- 
tine line" is pre-eminently beautiful; while straight 
lines are too lean and poor and circles or lines nearly 
circular are too gross. The rules thus laid down by 
the great artist are manifestly true; but the explan- 
ation of them is rather that of a portrait-painter than 
of a philosopher. Circles displease not on account of 
their grossness or fatness, but because they violate, 
in one chief respect, the principle of beauty. For, in 
them the element of uniformity is so obtrusively mani- 
fest as to completely obscure the element of variety 
and change; it requires no little thought to perceive 
the continuous change of direction involved in a circle. 
Thus the law of beauty is exactly reversed. That 



44 SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

law demands, as we have seen, that the element of 
variety and change should be clearly and superficially 
apparent, while the element of unity and invariableness 
must be more obscurely presented. This relation be- 
tween clear and dim perception is of the very essence 
of the beautiful. 

(2) What constitutes that charm of color felt at 
once by the savage and the civilized, but which has 
never been explained except as inexplicably "organic'' 
or "primitive"? But the scientific explanation is now 
not far to seek. For, firstly, color is the most vivid 
manifestation possible of change or contrast; in fact, 
all visible differences are exhibited to us, only through 
the medium of differently colored lines or surfaces. 
And, secondly, all these variations are governed by a 
simple law of unity or gradation whereby one shifting- 
hue passes into another with infinite grace and deli- 
cacy. The rainbow revealed that to the commonest 
mind, long before there was any science of optics. 
And color is beautiful because it is thus capable of 
fully satisfying the realistic delight in change or con- 
trast and the idealistic passion for unity and order. 

We can also easily explain why savages, children 
and the uncultivated take such delight in gaudy, 
glaring colors. Fdr such minds are captivated by the 
realistic element in beauty ; they love the contrast and 
novelty so vividly displayed by bright colors. But 
the idealistic element, that obscure revelation of unity, 
gradation and repose can be fully appreciated only by 
the thoughtful and the artistic. Compare, for in- 
stance, the gradated tints of the rainbow or of a blush 



ART. 45 

mantling a fair cheek with the paint on the face of a 
savage. 

(3) The beauty of sounds manifestly depends upon 
the same law of synthesis. Music gives us, on the 
one hand, an ever changing succession of fleeting 
sounds ; on the other, a sense of regularity pervading, 
more or less obscurely, this mass of vocal changes. 
The first element, by itself, would be but mere noise, 
irregular and flitting, which would soon become in- 
tensely irritating; the second, by itself, would soon 
pass into a dull and oppressive monotony. But the 
two are combined even in the crudest forms of savage 
music, and far more perfectly in the triumphs of mod- 
ern musical art. And the eternal charm of music 
consists in its wonderful capacity for thus combining 
those realistic emotions which stir and excite the soul, 
with those idealistic ones that soothe and tranquilize 
it by their suggestions of power, unity and repose. 

(4) Our law is then fully verified in regard to those 
three grand divisions of aesthetic theory, the beauty 
of figure, color and sound. We come now to the the- 
ory of the Fine Arts. And here we need only to 
complete Schiller's celebrated definition of Art as play. 
That definition precisely expresses one side or element 
of all artistic production. 

For, play has three essential characteristics, first, it 
is unconstrained; if it was carried on not for its own 
sake, but under the constraint of some useful end, it 
would be work. Secondly, play is imitative, it cares 
only for appearance, lives in a feigned world copied 
from the real one. Thirdly, its pleasure is that af- 



46 SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

forded by change, novelty, release from the dull toil 
and monotony of common life. Now, we have already 
seen that these three characteristics -delight in free- 
dom or in the absence of constraining and regulative 
power, delight in appearance or show and delight in 
novelty — are precisely the characteristics of realistic 
emotion. This is the philosophic truth involved in 
Schiller's definition. 

But the Fine Arts are something more than play. 
They contain also an element of seriousness, of pro- 
found thought, of strenuous although exalted toil. 
True art must give at least some suggestion of that 
regulative power, unity and repose which obscurely 
pervades the apparent world of hap-hazard, show and 
change. It was the recognition of this deeper element 
in art which made Aristotle say so grandly that poetry 
was a more serious and philosophic matter than phil- 
osophy itself. In a word, Art must combine the spirit 
of play and of seriousness ; it must gratify both realis- 
tic and idealistic emotion. 

I can here note, very briefly, a few of the many 
applications of this doctrine. First, it avoids the fatal 
defect of Schiller's theory, in that he was never able 
to precisely define the difference between the Fine 
Arts and other kinds of play that are anything but 
artistic. Whatever gratifies merely the delight in free- 
dom, mimicry and change, is play and nothing more. 
Beautiful play or art begins when the deeper and more 
serious element is added. 

Secondly, it shows that art is something more than 
imitation. There may be the utmost realism, the 



ART. 47 

most vivid and photographic copying of nature and 
still no genuine art. Beyond the mere play or imita- 
tive fancy, there must be that creative work of the 
imagination which idealizes common things, imparts 
the charm of unity and order to apparent chaos, 
breathes, as it were, upon the dead, incoherent mass 
of details and transforms it into living and immortal 
beauty. As a corollary to this, comes also Lessing's 
famous law that the more perfect the imitation effected 
by any art, the narrower is its range. Sculpture, for 
instance, is thus confined to a very narrow class of 
objects. And the explanation is now easy : the more 
perfect the realistic imitation, the less chance for ideal- 
istic suggestion. 

Thirdly, another essential characteristic of art is 
that its noblest efforts transcend all rules and technical 
processes. This too, can now be readily explained. 
The realistic imitation of the apparent is largely me- 
chanical. But the other, or idealistic element, is more 
dimly perceived, and therefore in the treatment of it 
rules and mechanical processes are of little avail ; it 
can be known and expressed only by the subtle power 
of artistic genius. 

(5) That distinction between fancy and imagination 
so much discussed by modern criticism, can be fully 
explained only by our theory. The difference between 
them I find to be that the one clings to the realistic 
element, the other to the idealistic element in beauty. 
For, firstly, fancy is pure play; she has no depth of 
feeling or earnestness ; but imagination is ever serious, 
intense, speaks from the heart to the heart. Secondly, 



48 SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

the fancy is imitative ; she delights in appearance, 
.md pictures the exterior. The imagination is 
creative, reveals the inmost nature of things. Third]}', 
the fancy is clear, brilliant ; her metaphors play like 
Lambent flames over the mere surface ol things. Hut 
the imagination is prone to obscurity ; with a word 
sin- dimly suggests things unutterable ; with a few 
grand strokes, she opens up exhaustless thoughts that 
flow on forever. Fourthly, the fancy works by rule, 
is accurate, elegant. But the imagination cares little 
for laws or conventional forms ; she breaks the casket 
in order to get the jewels. Fifthly, the fancy delights 
in multiplicity and details; the imagination has the 
secret of unity and comprehends the whole with a 
glance. Sixthly, the fancy is fond of change ; is 
less, feverish, thirsts for startling effects. But the 
very essence of the imagination is a sublime repose, 
quivering with the pulses of a hidden power. 

Xo one, conversant with the great, incoherent mass 
of criticism about fancy and imagination, will deny 
that the essential differences between the two are cor- 
rectly portrayed above. And they obviously corres- 
pond to what we have before seen to be the differences 
between the realistic and the idealistic element in 
beauty. 

(6) The ludicrous has been generally defined as the 
incongruous. But there is evidently something lack- 
ing in this definition, for the incongruous is by no 
means always laughable. Many unavailing efforts 
have been made to supply what is so plainly missing 
here. Bain, for instance, following in this other 



ART. 49 

eminent thinkers, has described the essence of the 
ludicrous as consisting in the degradation of some- 
thing worthy. But that plainly is to confound pure 
and sweet laughter with hateful derision and ghoulish 
glee. Evidently the true definition remains still to 
be sought, and T now define the ludicrous as that 
which produces an excess of realistic emotion. 

Realistic emotion, as we have seen, depends upon 
the perception of variety and change. When both 
of these are in a certain excess, when variety has be- 
come incongruity and change has become sudden, 
even abrupt, we have the ludicrous. A tumble into 
the mud is made ludicrous by the incongruity of the 
position and, above all, by its abruptness and unex- 
pectedness. A skilled jester wears a grave face, in 
order to make the perception of incongruity as ab- 
rupt as possible. We smile at a momentary discord, 
but when long continued it becomes a torture. A 
drenching is ludicrous, if sudden and unexpected 
enough. We laugh at an unexpected act of folly, 
but not at persistent foolishness. Wit must come in 
flashes. Repetition wears away the point of every 
joke, and converts the ludicrous into the painful. 

Laughter, then, is intense realistic emotion — de- 
light in variety and change, carried to the extreme of 
abrupt, unexpected incongruity. The full force of 
this definition appears in its explanation of humor or 
laughter made beautiful. Humor is intense realistic 
emotion tempered by idealistic seriousness. The 
true humorist is quick to perceive the incongruous 
and unexpected, but he is equally quick to perceive 
4 



50 SCI] \< E OF THOUGHT. 

that latent power and ideal unity of human 

nature hidden beneath these superficial and fleeting 

aspects of weakness and folly. And among all the 

fine arts there is none finer than that which thus 
harmonizes the spirit of laughter and play with a 
genial, loving sympathy for mankind. 

(7) What, now, is the sublime ? The definitions 
heretofore given seem almost ludicrously inadequate. 
Many, including even so great an artistic genius as 
Hogarth, have described the essence of sublimity as 
consisting in magnitude. But a whale is not sub- 
lime. Others assert that the essence of sublimity is 
heighth. But the sublimity which we find in the 
Pyramids we should not find in a pole twice as high. 
Passing by other equally unsatisfactory answers, we 
present the solution given by our fundamental law. 

Idealistic emotion we have found to be delight in 
the dim perception of power, unity and permanence. 
Sublimity is this feeling carried to the highest in- 
tensity, but still relieved by the counter-feeling. The 
delight in power, unity and permanence — the ideal 
of action, space and time — must be relieved by de- 
light in change and contrast ; otherwise we should 
have only the dull, depressing sense of laborious 
effort, sameness and monotony. Instead of a sense 
of sublimity we should have only an unbalanced and 
painful feeling. The sublime, then, is that which 
produces the utmost intensity of idealistic emotion 
compatible with realistic emotion. 

Countless examples might be given to show that 
both emotions must be present. The ocean, per- 



ART. 51 

fectly and perpetually calm, would be but a "big 
pond"; but with its ever changing waves and storms, 
it becomes ineffably sublime. The immeasurable 
vault of heaven would be dull enough, if its sameness 
were not relieved by the glitter and seeming disorder 
of the stars. The mountains are made sublime' by 
their eternal repose amidst scenes of incessant change. 
Acts of heroism and self-sacrifice gain their grandeur 
from their contrast with the common level of human 
action. The thunder-storm, above all else, with its 
awful display of illimitable power, producing the 
most vivid changes and contrasts — its sudden out- 
burst of tremendous energy throughout the whole 
vast and stable vault of heaven, its thick darkness 
relieved by swift flashes of lightning, the deep roll of 
the thunder gradually dying away in the far distance 
— all this furnishes a perfect type of sublimity. But 
perpetual thunder and lightning would be anything 
but sublime. 

It may be well to specially note one element of 
sublimity — mystery. The objects of idealistic emo- 
tion, as we have repeatedly seen, are dimly perceived; 
and as dimness passes into mystery, that emotion 
rises in intensity. Therefore, mystery promotes the 
sense of sublifhity; and on the other hand, clearness 
is essential to the ludicrous. The obscurity which 
would be fatal to the excellence of a joke, intensifies 
the sublime. 

Still another gleam of light must be thrown upon 
the relation between the sublime and the ludicrous. 
The sublime we now know to be that which produces 



52 SCIENCE OF THOUCHT. 

the utmost intensity of idealistic emotion delicately 
balanced by realistic feeling; and that evidently must 
be a state of most unstable equilibrium. In other 
words, it is a state extremely liable to sudden collapse. 
But from the definitions already given, it is obvious 
that* the sudden collapse of the sublime would form a 
perfect type of the ludicrous. This is the philosophic 
explanation of the proverb that it is but a step from 
the sublime to the ridiculous. 

The opposition between realism and idealism in art 
has long been recognized: but only in a vague, em- 
pirical way which has resulted in nothing but endless 
disputes. But now for the first time these two tend- 
encies have been analyzed and their respective char- 
acteristics fully described. Now also the exact 
relation between them has been stated — not of an- 
tagonism but of reciprocal need of each other in the 
perfect balance of thought. And thus a law of the 
beautiful has been formed whereby we have been able 
to explain those aesthetic judgments and principles of 
art which have heretofore been despairingly re- 
garded as ultimate, inexplicable facts given to men by 
some magic of instinct or intuition. And this law of 
beauty we have derived from a still wider law, simple 
and universal as gravity. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
PAGAN CIVILIZATION. 

The nature of thought, then, is everywhere the 
same. All processes of thinking, from the simplest 
perception up to the splendors of physical, moral and 
aesthetic science have one common characteristic and 
obey one universal law. It remains now to show that 
this law will explain the course of human civilization 
and thus give to us a true philosophy of history. 

Beginning with ancient civilization, we find there 
two distinct types of development, the Oriental and 
the Classical. The first of these is ruled by the ideal- 
istic impulse, the other by the realistic: each thus un- 
duly emphasizes one element of thought and ignores 
the other. And each thus becomes fatally defective, 
because it is the development of a one-sided and ex- 
aggerated tendency of the human spirit. To prove 
this let us consider, first, the characteristic features 
of Oriental civilization. 

(i) It has long been well understood that the pre- 
vailing philosophy of the Orient was an extravagant 
idealism. For Oriental thought, the whole visible 
universe shrivels into Maya or illusion. Even per- 
sonality is recognized only as a transient form of be- 
ing, which finally fades into the abstractness of Brahma 
or the nothmgness of Nirvana. Everything is 
sacrificed to the passion for gazing into the depths of 
pure existence, the absolute cause, the unity and per- 



54 SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

manence underlying all multiplicity and change. Along 

with this go all the minor marks of an excessive ideal- 
ism. The disdain of experience, the constant appeal 
to intuition or ecstacy or some other mystic, a priori 
process of thought, the slavish deference to authority, 
the absence of free inquiry and of the critical spirit — 
all these are well known features of the Oriental mind. 
(2) Oriental religion has six essential characteris- 
tics. First a pantheistic conception of the universe; 
all finite existence is but a mode of the absolute. 
Secondly, fatalism; human life is everywhere enmeshed 
in the bonds of an infinite causality. This is very 
different, however, from that modern denial of moral 
freedom which is based upon the ignoring of all con- 
scious causality whatever; the two opposite tendencies 
of the human spirit frequently reach the same abyss, 
through different roads. Thirdly, sacerdotalism; for 
man, a mere waif of weakness and sin, there is no way 
of salvation save through priestly intervention. Fourth- 
ly, the sacrificial element overwhelms the moral; man's 
weak striving after righteousness is in vain; piety con- 
sists not in virtue but in sacrifice, not in what we do, 
but in what we surrender to the Infinite. Fifthly, the 
complete subordination of reason to faith; the soul 
cannot attain to truth through its unaided efforts, but 
only through revelation and ecstacy. Sixthly, a wild 
supernaturalism; man disdaining the present world of 
illusions and changes, gives himself up to dreams of 
futurity. These are the manifest characteristics of 
Oriental religion; and they all are the evident products 
of that idealistic tendency which sacrifices theindivid- 



PAGAN CIVILIZATION. 55 

ual, the many and the transitory, in order to lay all 
emphasis upon the thought of one, unchanging and 
eternal cause. 

(3) Oriental morality is under the same pitiless 
law of one-sided development. The sense of causal- 
ity is pushed to fatal excesses. The feeling of respons- 
ibility to the higher powers forms the almost exclusive 
rule of action. The practical consequences of con- 
duct are so completely ignored that the moral ideal is 
made to consist in the sacrifice of happiness, in the 
cruel tortures of asceticism. 

At the conclusion of the chapter upon ethics we have 
described the inevitable results of a morality which ig- 
nores the consequences of conduct; and the Orient is a 
living witness to the truth of that description. The 
Oriental spirit, weighed down by the sense of sin 
and responsibility, is manifestly lacking in moral tone 
and vigor. It is obedient, very scrupulous about mi- 
nute things, but strangely neglectful of the weightier 
matters of the law. Veracity in the East seems hardly 
to be numbered among the virtues. Justice is but an- 
other name for the whims of a despot. Benevolence, 
confining its care to bugs, monkeys and other beasts, 
has but slight concern for the misery and agony of 
men. In a word, Oriental morality, vitiated by the 
lack of the utilitarian or realistic element is unpracti- 
cal, incoherent and fantastic. 

(4) Idealism, as we have seen, is essentially deduc- 
tive. The Orient has consequently made no slight 
contributions to mathematical science, wherein deduc- 
tion preponderates. But in physical or experimental 



56 SCIENCE OF THOUGHT, 

science there has been but little progress on account 
of that disdain for experience, lack of free inquiry and 
the clinging to the authority of the past which are so 
characteristic of extreme idealism. 

(5) That Oriental art is intensly idealistic, probably 
no one will deny. Its straining after the sublime in 
the guise of the colossal, the aspect of repose and 
permanence which pervades its creation, its passion 
for mystery, for Sphynx-like obscurity and the dim 
suggestion of deep truths — all these we have seen to 
be the essential marks of idealistic art. But it is ideal- 
ism in excess. Its seriousness often sinks into a dull, 
depressing solemnity. It lacks that realistic sense of 
measure and proportion which comes from exact ob- 
servation. It cares little for the close imitation of re- 
ality. And thus its vague and shadowy conceptions 
are always apt to become painfully grotesque. 

The chief triumphs of Oriental art have been archi- 
tectural. And the reason is now evident. For arch- 
itecture, employing the most rigid materials in great 
masses, and forced to adapt itself to utilitarian de- 
signs, gives less chance for the vagaries of an extrav- 
agant idealism, while affording full scope for the ideal- 
istic delight in power, repose and mystery. This is 
the truth which is partially and empirically recog- 
nized in Hegel's famous formula of architecture as the 
symbolic art — the art best fitted to express "the ob- 
scure ideas" of the Orient and the Middle Ages. 

Another characteristic — and a very noble, although 
little noticed one — is its idealistic love of Nature. Of 



PAGAN CIVILIZATION. 57 

this we shall have more to say in treating of classical 
civilization. 

(6) Social organization in the East is ruled by the 
same one-sided impulse. Its aim is the complete sub- 
ordination of the many to the one. The freedom of 
individuals, personal rights and private interests are all 
ruthlessly sacrificed to the idealistic demand for power, 
unity and permanence in the social system. Hence 
came the colossal empires which once ruled the East. 
Hence, also, the institution of castes, that overwhelm- 
ing sacrifice of the individual to the universal. And 
hence the peculiar character of Oriental laws, which 
are minute restrictions imposed upon every detail of 
human conduct; secondly, are divine revelations, as 
the institutes of Menu, for instance, declare; and 
thirdly, must from age to age be sacredly preserved 
from all change or innovation. In the land-laws there 
is even a communistic tinge; the right of property 
floats loosely between the individual holder, the vil- 
lage community and the state. Everywhere the ten- 
dency is to centralize; the centripetal forces completely 
over-power the centrifugal. In a word Oriental so- 
ciety caring solely for unity and permanence, is the very 
incarnation of an excessive and unbalanced idealism. 



As Oriental life was idealistic, so classical life 
was realistic to excess. This is the philosophic 
formula for that deep and wide contrast between the 
two, which has been universally recognized. 

(1) Greek philosophy is essentially realistic. Pla- 
tonism, at first view, seems to directly contradict this 



58 SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

statement; but the genius of Plato was diametrically 
opposed to the ruling tendencies of classical thought. 
That is proved by several considerations. First the 
Platonic philosophy did not thrive until after many 
centuries it was transplanted to Alexandria where 
Oriental influences were supreme. Secondly, the 
great master himself seems to have been a somewhat 
wavering supporter of his own principles; in his later 
dialogues there is an evident recoil from an idealism 
so repugnant to the native bent of the Greek mind. 
Thirdly, his absolutism and contempt for liberty, his 
communistic scorn of all individualism, and above all, 
his disdain for art, show how far he had separated him- 
self from the ruling impulses of his race. Plato, indeed, 
is a protestant against, rather than a representative 
of the prevailing tendencies of classical life. 

Looking then at the entire movement of Greek and 
Roman speculation, we see that it became more and 
more realistic and at last ended in thorough skepticism. 
The protest of Plato and his few followers was but an 
eddy in the current. 

(2) The realistic impulse engrossed with the phe- 
nomenal, neglectful of those higher conceptions which 
bind all things into unity and permanence, can give 
but a feeble support to religion. And such was sig- 
nally the case in Greek and Roman history. We have 
there presented before us the unique example of a re- 
ligion without a revelation. The supernatural is re- 
duced to its minimum. The idealistic conception of 
the Infinite is almost wholly wanting; the gods are 
immortal men, glorified types of humanity, but as 



PAGAN CIVILIZATION. 59 

thoroughly finite, especially in morals, as any ordinary 
mortal. Religion became merely a function of the 
state; the priests were simply public officials; and wor- 
ship a beautiful custom to be maintained in the inter- 
est of law and order. Under such condition criticism 
and doubt had an easy triumph. The simple child- 
like piety of earlier times was saved from utter extinc- 
tion only by that counter-tendency — that idealistic or 
causal impulse — which, however repressed, still ob- 
scurely pervades the human mind, because it is in- 
volved in the very nature of thought. 

(3) Classical morality also was ruled by the realis- 
tic impulse. Socrates always indentified virtue with 
wisdom; and from that thoroughly utilitarian view 
classical thought — even among the Platonists and 
Stoics — never departed. There is hardly a trace of 
that Oriental conception of virtue as obedience to im- 
mutable law supernaturally imposed. The Greek 
gods, in fact, were very poorly fitted to act as teach- 
ers of morality. The wisdom in which virtue consisted 
was to be gained by experience, by study of com- 
mon opinion and immemorial custom, by free and 
critical inquiry into the relative worth of sensuous and 
intellectual consequences. 

The morality thus attained had many charms. It had 
hardly a tinge of the hateful Oriental asceticism; its aim 
was not to repress but to educate, not the ascetic sacri- 
fice but the free, artistic development of human nature. 
By patient processes of observation and free inquiry, 
the moral code became clear, precise and practical. 
And there was imparted to classical life, for a time at 



60 SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

least, that moral tone and vigor which can be gained 
only by vivid perception of the consequences of 
conduct. 

But it was still a fatally defective morality. It 
was narrow and inadequate, in that it had no place 
for those virtues of obedience, patience, humility and 
loving sacrifice which form the nobler half of human 
aspiration. It was superficial in that it did not sat- 
isfy the deepest needs of life. It was almost a stranger 
to the idealistic sense of desert, responsibility and guilt; 
from the days of Homer downward, sin was but folly, or 
a passing fit of madness. In a word, it was a morality 
without. a basis — without any deep laid conviction of 
the eternal difference between duty and self-interest, 
the right and the expedient. And hence it soon suc- 
cumbed to the mighty forces of doubt and human 
passion. 

(4) We have seen in a previous chapter that the 
progress of science depends upon the equilibrium of 
the realistic or inductive and the idealistic or deduc- 
tive tendency. Hence realistic Greece and Rome 
made such slight scientific advance. Something 
more was needed than intellectual ardor and the acut- 
est powers of observation; great thinkers like Aristotle 
for instance, might go on forever, scrutinising the 
obvious and superficial aspects of things without gain- 
ing- the least insight into the hidden laws and secret 
processes of nature. But at Alexandria the needful 
equilibrium of impulses was, for a brief period attained. 
That great city, lying at the gateway of ancient 
commerce, became the focus of the Oriental influen- 



PAGAN CIVILIZATION. 6 1 

ces, that were streaming in upon the west; and in her 
schools there was, for a time, an eclectic commingling 
of the two tendencies of the human spirit. 

Hence it happened, just as our law would demand, 
that classical science was almost exclusively Alexan- 
drian. We need only point to the immortal discov- 
eries of Hipparchus and Eratosthenes in astronomy 
and geography, of Euclid in geometry, and Archimedes 
in mechanics — to show how much was done for science 
in that eclectic city, and how little outside the circle 
of her influence. 

But this synthesis was purely fortuitous ; it was the 
temporary product of fortunate but fleeting conditions. 
Alexandrian idealism soon passed into the wildest 
Oriental mysticism and was cast aside by the realistic 
common-sense of the Greek and Roman mind. Hence- 
forward classical life went on in its own empirical way 
and science made no farther progress. 

Thus our law is not only verified, but it solves one 
of the chief enigmas of history — -the failure of the 
acute, inquiring intellect of antiquity to make any 
scientific progress except under the Alexandrian 
influence. 

(5) Classical art also was intensely realistic. It 
has, of course, an idealistic element, or else it would 
not have been genuine art ; but the idealism is sup- 
pressed, suggested rather than boldly presented. 
There is no taint of Oriental extravagance and dreami- 
ness, no straining after the sublime, the mysterious or 
the profound. Greek art was content to imitate real- 
ity exactly as it appears ; with critical and observant 



62 SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

gaze, it strove to see things in their true measure and 
proportion. The Orientals failed because they at- 
tempted so much ; the Greeks succeeded so gloriously 
because they attempted so little. 

Our doctrine illumines the whole history of classical 
art. But I can only note a few particulars. First, 
it explains the peculiar charm of classical mythology 
— the fading of the wild, grotesque dreams of the 
primitive nature-worship before a realism which 
cared more for the correct imitation of actual life than 
for the mystic meaning of the myth. Secondly, it 
explains the position of sculpture as preeminently the 
classical art ; for that is the most imitative of all the 
arts, the one which depends most upon realistic ac- 
curacy of observation and least upon idealistic depth 
of thought. Thirdly, it explains the Greek lack of 
that intense, sympathetic feeling for Nature which is 
so vivid in Oriental poetry and art — that slight sense 
of the mysterious power, unity and tranquil order per- 
vading all natural phenomena. The Greeks regarded 
all natural scenery with a practical, utilitariar spirit, 
not with reverent idealistic love. The landscape 
formed but a minor feature of their art. Fourthly, 
our doctrine accounts for the quick decline of classical 
art. The period of artistic perfection lasted for not 
much more than a century, in those early Greek times 
when Egyptian and Oriental ideas were making their 
first, strong impression upon the native realism of 
Greece. But thenceforward, from century to cen- 
tury, art became more and more realistic — precise, 
mechanical, imitative. Roman elegance took the 
place of Greek beauty. 



PAGAN CIVILIZATION. 63 

(6) Classical society incarnates the realistic im- 
pulse toward individualism, The rights of the indi- 
vidual were not sacrificed, as in the Orient, to the 
demand for social unity and permanence ; on the 
contrary, they were made the supreme consideration. 
Government, in theory at least, was reduced to its 
minimum ; it existed solely for the protection of per- 
sonal liberty and private rights. 

Classical law thus became the exact reverse of 
Oriental. First, its origin was not revelation, but 
human reason ; it was the concentrated wisdom and 
will of the people. Secondly, its object was not to 
lay minute and grievous restrictions upon human 
life, but simply to protect the rights of the many 
against the violence of the few. Thirdly, its form 
was not rigid and immutable ; without the Oriental 
dread of innovation, it was continually changing to 
adapt itself to the varying needs of human life. 
These characteristics — of origin, object and form — 
fully describe classical law, and the essence of them 
all is evidently realistic emphasis upon the rights of 
the individual. 

The intense patriotism of classical antiquity in its 
best ages can also be readily explained. The Greeks 
regarded the state as the citadel of his rights and 
liberties ; the Oriental regarded it as an altar upon 
which he must sacrifice all individual claims and in- 
terest's. Obviously, a far more fervent love of the 
state would arise in the former case than in the 
latter. 



64 SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

The social development thus attained was for a 
brief period, very grand and beautiful ; but it was 
one-sided, fatally defective and doomed to speedy 
decline. Among many proofs of this I can note only 
the existence of slavery. That has always been re- 
garded as an anomaly, but, in fact, it was a natural 
and necessary product of the classical spirit. The 
fierce passions of an unchecked individualism will 
always reduce the weak to some form or other of 
servitude. When all emphasis is laid upon rights 
rather than upon duties the strong will never doubt 
their right of property in human flesh. 

It was also inevitable that the classical regime 
should end in a military despotism. For realism is 
purely divisive. No wisdom or patriotism can long 
restrain the strife of individualism, the bitter struggle 
between the rich and the poor, the strong and the 
weak. For a social system like that of classical 
antiquity, brute force is the only enduring bond of 
union. 



CHAPTER IX. 
CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 

The law of Pagan life, then, is the unchecked, 
exaggerated development of one or the other of the 
two conflicting impulses of thought. Christian civil- 
ization is under an altogether different law. Its aim 
is to convert, to regenerate, to transform the human 
'spirit. Finding one impulse abnormally developed 
into fatal excesses, it arouses the counter-impulse of 
human nature ; it awakens a new spirit, a new life to 
struggle with the old, and thus effects the intellectual 
and moral regeneration of the race. 

Mediaeval or Catholic civilization found itself con- 
fronted with a life thoroughly realistic. The real- 
ism of Germanic savagery differed from that of Latin 
culture only in being cruder and fiercer. There- 
fore, according to our law, Mediaeval Christianity 
must seek to arouse the counter-impulse, the ideal- 
istic spirit; in a word, it must strive to Orientalize 
the West. That it did so we shall now attempt to 
prove. 

(i) The dominant philosophy of the middle ages, 
despite the misleading name which it happened to as- 
sume, is thoroughly idealistic. Orthodox scholasti- 
cism, caring little for the individual, the phenomenal, 
ever soars away into the super-sensuous realm of 
universals, ideas, causes. Its long struggle against 
5 



66 SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

Nominalism was a battle in behalf of the logical prin- 
ciples which underlie a true Oriental idealism. 

The other features of Mediaeval thought are of the 
same idealistic or Oriental cast. Subordination of 
reason to faith, slavish submissiveness to the authority 
of the past, endless commenting upon ancient works, 
delight in abstraction and in the spinning of subtile 
distinctions, credulity, dread of criticism and free in- 
quiry — all these intellectual traits are as prominent 
in the middle ages as in the Orient. Catholic Chris- 
tianity had completely transformed the intellectual 
life of Europe. 

(2) Mediaeval religion is marked by every one of 
those six essential characteristics, which we have 
found in Asiatic faith. In fact, there are so many 
striking resemblances between Catholicism and Ori- 
ental religion — especially Buddhism — that some have 
thought that one was copied from the other. But 
this is historically absurd. The two systems have 
so many points of similarity, because they are crea- 
tions of the same idealistic tendency. 

I can note here but one other distinctive feature of 
Mediaeval religion, but that a most significant one. 
In the East religion has ever been in harmony with 
the ruling tendency of popular life, in fact, one of 
the forms of its development. But Catholic religion 
began as a reformatory and regenerating movement 
against the realism that had ruled the Germanic and 
Latin races ; and for many centuries so continued. 
Hence came that long struggle between the temporal 
and the spiritual power that forms the most unique 



CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 67 

and striking feature of Mediaeval history. On the one 
side was the Catholic church, that marvelous creation 
of the idealistic craving- after unity and permanence 
— all its chief institutions, the hierarchy, the mon- 
astic discipline, the celibacy of the clergy, the con- 
fessional and the inquisition being inspired with the 
common design of repressing individualism and in- 
fusing into the Middle Ages a true Oriental spirit of 
unity, obedience and faith. On the other side stood 
the temporal power, the military class, the anarchy, 
first savage and then feudal, the heresies and unbe- 
lief — all the secularizing forces of such realism as 
still survived. From century to century the struggle 
went on, until Christendom had been completely 
transformed ; and then the mission of the Mediaeval 
regime was at an end. 

(3) The revolution effected in European morality 
was equally sweeping. Classical utilitarianism per- 
ished utterly; conduct was judged not by its prac- 
tical consequences, but by its conformity to a divine 
code upheld by supernatural sanctions. For the 
Greeks, the essence of virtue was wisdom ; for the 
Middle Ages, it was emotion. Ecstasy took the place 
of reason. The estimate of different duties was 
exactly reversed. Benevolence, which Plato had not 
even named among the virtues, rose to the highest 
place of all ; while prudence, justice and veracity 
sank correspondingly in the scale. The Asiatic ideal 
of ascetic repression was substituted for the Greek 
ideal of free self-development. 

Still the moral revolution did not reach to the full 



68 SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

height of Oriental excess. The idealistic impulse was 
reacted upon by the counter-impulse which it was 
subverting. 

(4) Mediaeval idealism, deductive and averse to ex- 
perience, could make no scientific progress; but it 
furnished the indispensable preparation for such prog- 
ress. There was first needed an idealistic age which 
should train the European intellect to distrust mere 
appearances, to understand that the inner constitu- 
tion of things is seldom revealed by their most obvi- 
ous characteristics, to seek with unconquerable faith 
after the unity and unchanging order hidden within 
the seeming chaos of Nature. Then scientific research 
became possible. Without such a preparation, the 
modern age of free inquiry would have ended just as 
the Greek age did, in crude and barren empiricism. 

It has long been recognized that alchemy was a sort 
of forerunner to modern science. But this is only a 
dim, empirical recognition of the law here, for the 
first time, disclosed. Alchemy and the other occult 
and mystical arts were but incidents in that idealistic 
development which ruled the Middle Ages and pre- 
pared the way for modern science. 

(5) The parallelism between Mediaeval and Oriental 
art seems perfect at every point. In both architect- 
ure is the supreme art, the one attracting the greatest 
attention and reaching the highest excellence. In 
both there is the same striving after sublimity, an aim 
more fully attained, perhaps, in the great cathedrals 
than in any other work of man. In both there is the 
same spirituality, depth of thought and vagueness of 



CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 69 

expression that together form what Hegel calls sym- 
bolic art. In both there is a high degree of that 
idealistic love of Nature so strangely lacking in classi- 
cal art. In both there is the same obscurity which 
seeks more to stimulate the imagination than to 
clearly and closely imitate reality. The poetry of 
Dante and the forest-like gloom of a Gothic cathedral 
are the most perfect types of this idealistic delight in 
dim suggestion. 

(6) Mediaeval society was based upon three prin- 
ciples. The first principle was that of a true, Oriental 
absolutism which must be understood as the exact re- 
verse of the military despotism with which classical 
life ended. The latter was purely materialistic, the 
crushing of the human spirit by brute force; the for- 
mer sprang from a voluntary surrender to the ideal- 
istic craving for social unity, permanence and order. 
The Mediaeval regime began with social chaos. But 
from century to century the idealistic desire of unity 
increased; the thought of a common language and 
country grew more potent; the Oriental virtues of 
obedience, resignation and faith or loyalty were more 
firmly woven into popular life; and thus- the great 
kingdoms of Europe were founded, not by force of 
arms, but by a universal impulse. 

The second organizing principle was feudalism, 
which consisted essentially in the feudal tenures of 
property. These are obviously the outcome of an 
idealistic sacrifice of rights to duties and services. As 
in the Orient, so in the Middle Ages, a full right of 
property is lodged nowhere; it floats about like a mist 



/O sell \< i. ' >i i lion, in . 

between the crown, the feudal lord and the vassal. 
The abstract right was restricted and belittled in every 

possible way, and it was made entirely dependent 
upon a complicated network ot services, aids, reliefs 
and other feudal duties. 

In practical life, the Mediaeval impulse could not go 
farther than this mere restriction of the rights of pro- 
perty. Hut at heart idealism is always communistic. 
The great idealists of antiquity, Plato, Pythagoras and 
their followers were all communists. The same 
theory ruled the higher types of Oriental religion, 
preeminently Buddhism. So it did in Mediaeval re- 
ligion, which glorified poverty and felt that men 
really owned nothing and owed everything. And 
this theory working darkly upon practical life as best 
it could, gave rise to the feudal tenures so strangely 
hemmed round about by all manner of restrictions. 

The third social principle was that of serfdom. 
Slavery we have found to be the natural product of 
realistic individualism with its fierce emphasis upon 
the rights of property. As these rights dwindled, 
slavery perished. But the freedom thus gained was 
restricted in every way ; the serf was even fixed to 
the soil, and had no legal redress against his lord. 
In a word, serfdom and the Oriental system of castes 
were of the same essence : both were grievous restric- 
tions upon human rights in the interest of social order 
and stability. 

The three essential characteristics of the Mediaeval 
regime, then, all have the same origin. The idealistic 
and Oriental demand for order, unity and permanence 



CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 7 I 

had triumphed over the old classical and Germanic 
delight in individualism and change. 



The Mediaeval movement had fulfilled its mission. 
European life had been transformed ; the West was 
being rapidly converted into a new Orient. If the 
movement had gone on unchecked much longer, abso- 
lutism, superstition and a true Oriental torpor would 
have enslaved Christendom ; and human progress 
would have been at an end. 

But Christianity was true to its fundamental law of 
regeneration. Against the old order of things, there 
suddenly rose a mighty outburst of protest and reform. 
The tendencies of European life were reversed; indi- 
vidualism and progressive change became the ideals 
of civilization. Thus began that modern period whose 
characteristics we have now to describe. 

Before going into details, however, one general 
characteristic must be noted. Although the pendulum 
oscillates from one side to the other, it marks a con- 
tinuous, forward movement of time. The Mediaeval 
period formed an indispensable preparation for the 
modern. The really valuable results gained in the 
Middle Ages were not lost ; the conquered handed 
over many treasures into the possession of the con- 
querors. This retention of Mediaeval results has caused 
that complexity of modern life which every observer 
has noted. It is a complexity so great as might seem 
to render all analysis impossible ; but the exceeding 
simplicity of our fundamental law will enable us to 
unravel it all. 



72 SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

(i) The complex movement of modern speculation 
can be reduced to a very simple formula. The real- 
istic impulse has passed through four phases of ever 
increasing power; the idealistic impulse has passed 
through four correspondent phases of waning. Mod- 
ern realism began as a sober protest against the 
wildest vagaries of the scholastic idealism then domi- 
nant. Thence it passed into the sensationalism of 
Locke; then into the crude materialism of the 
French Encyclopedists ; fourthly and lastly, into the 
abject agnosticism of Mills, Spencer and the great 
mass of modern thinkers. The realism which began 
as a modest, reforming impulse, ends as pure destruct- 
iveness and negation. 

The four waning phases of modern idealism are as 
follows: It began as an ontological idealism, thorough- 
going and mystical, which had been inherited from the 
middle ages. The second period was ushered in by 
Descartes and Leibnitz, who gave up the ontologic 
basis for a merely psychologic one, confining them- 
selves to the defense of ''innate ideas," or "intui- 
tions," or "universal and necessary truths." Kant 
introduces the third period, teaching a merely ethical 
idealism founded upon certain postulates assumed by 
"the practical reason," because they are supposed to 
be morally useful. In the fourth period, the ethical 
basis has been given up and idealism has become 
purely imaginative. This final phase is represented 
in England by Hamilton, whose doctrine is based 
upon "the impotence of thought"; in France, by 
Cousin, who rests everything upon "the spontaneity 



CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 73 

of reason" — that is upon an unreflective and therefore 
unreasoning reason ; and in Germany by Hegel whose 
idealism is founded upon the amazing fancy that con- 
tradictories are identical. 

This sketch of modern philosophy compresses into 
a page what might have well been expanded into a 
volume; but its truthfulness cannot be successfully 
impugned. How utterly idealism has waned before 
the counter-impulse is further proved, firstly, by the 
extreme smallness of the remnant who adhere to the 
doctrine; secondly, by the character of the practical 
conclusions finally attained, which do not seem to be 
essentially different from those of the rankest realism. 
But still let us give all honor to the genius of these 
great German thinkers — to Hegel especially, who 
dimly discerned the essential duality of thought, al- 
though rather as a dark prophet than as a discoverer. 

(2) It is a mere common place to say that modern 
morality is intensely realistic or utilitarian. True, 
we have not wholly reverted to the naive child-like 
egoism of classical antiquity: our souls still respond, 
at least faintly, to the more spiritual influences which 
have survived from the Middle Ages. In fact, we 
seem to have two ethical codes — an idealistic doctrine of 
self-sacrifice, humility and resignation which we pro- 
fess, and a realistic doctrine of self-interest and indi- 
vidualism which we actually practice. But it is to be 
feared that our sentimental professions serve only to 
blind us to the mighty power with which the utili- 
tarian morality rules over our modern life. 

(3) Modern religion began as a splendid protest 



74 SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

of individualism and realistic good-sense against 
mediaeval priest-craft and superstition. The mag- 
nificent results achieved by this reformatory and re- 
generating movement are too familiar to need recount- 
ing here. Still, this realistic development was one- 
sided and long ago passed into fatal excesses. The 
old ideals of unity, obedience and reposeful faith have 
departed, although their shadows yet linger with us. 
The old content of religion — revelation, sacrifice, the 
supernatural — has gradually dissolved. Nothing ap- 
pears to remain but the erotic element — the one word, 
love, which means anything from the spiritually sub- 
lime to the sensuously low. In a word we are draw- 
ing closer and closer to a secularism, like that of 
classical antiquity, wherein religion still survives as 
a sentiment and a social institution, but without 
depth or intensity of faith in spiritual things. 

In the Middle Ages, morality was but a phase of 
religion: but we have completely reversed this, and 
reduced religion to a mere phase of the ethical. 
Piety, with us, is our utilitarian morality tinged with 
emotion. It is as a setting sun diffusing its radiance 
over those western clouds which after all are naught 
but the cold gray mists of approaching night. 

(4) Out of the torpor of the Middle Ages, a new 
era of free inquiry, intensely practical and realistic, 
suddenly burst upon the world; and modern science 
began its swift progress. But mediaeval idealism 
with its deep distrust of the phenomenal and its faith 
in the cosmic order hidden beneath the surface of 
things, furnished the indispensable preparation for 



CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 7$ 

this scientific advance. The founders of science, 
Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes and Newton, 
were all idealists — men who retained the best of the 
past while yielding themselves to the new spirit of 
free inquiry and observation. And ever since all the 
great scientific discoverers, unconsciously — or rather, 
through that instinct of genius which always shuns 
extremes and one-sidedness — have exemplified the 
law that scientific progress depends upon the har- 
mony of the two conflicting tendencies of thought. 

This law also explains the retardation of the scien- 
tific movement. The grandest triumphs of that move- 
ment, as every one knows, were gained ir the first cen- 
tury of the modern era, while the influences of idealism 
were fresh and vivid. Ever since, as realism has in- 
creased, the rate of progress has been less and less. 
At present the age of scientific discovery has given 
way to one of mere mechanical invention. The pure- 
ly empirical part of scientific work goes bravely on; 
the great mass of facts collected by patient observers, 
constantly grows vaster and more chaotic. But the 
further progress of true science depends upon a new 
out-burst of idealistic genius which shall reduce this 
chaos to the unity and order of universal law. 

(5) Just as oursesthetic theory would demand, Chris- 
tian art culminated in that period of transition when 
mediaeval influences werestill strongbut werebeingper- 
vaded and modified by the modern spirit. And ever 
since, as realism has increased, art has declined. Every 
one knows, for instance, that in this period of transi- 
tion, painting and sculpture became more sensuous, 



j6 SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

exactly imitative and classical; and what an incom- 
parable splendor was thus imparted to the works of a 
Michel Angelo or a Raphael. Hut subsequent centuries 
have shown that this splendor was that of decay, the 
beauty of autumnal leaves, the soft hue of roses with 
which consumption at first tinges the cheek of its vic- 
tim. 

At the close of this age of transition when night and 
day intermingled, stood Shakespeare, the crowned 
head of all human art. Since then there has been 
idealism in art and life, but it has assumed a peculiar 
form. It has become purely emotional; driven from 
the field of thought, it has found refuge in that of feel- 
ing. 

And herein lies the explanation of what is univer- 
sally recognized as the chief characteristic of the modern 
mind — that passion for introspection of which the mad 
Hamlet was the wonderful prophesy. For all this pain- 
ful brooding over the inner life is the evident result of 
that pitiable conflict between feeling and thought — 
between what men fondly dream of and what they 
really believe in. And out of this comes that lack of 
repose, that fever of unrest and discontent so percept- 
ible in all our art and life. 

Music, alone of all the Fine Arts, has made a glori- 
ous advance in the past two centuries; and the explan- 
ation thereof is now easy. For music is the most sens- 
uous of the arts; it appeals to feeling rather than to 
thought; its office is to stimulate vague, although ex- 
alted emotion, rather than to express definite ideas. 
Therefore, it is an art peculiarly enchanting to an 



CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. TJ 

age in which, as we have just seen, the lingering 
remnants of idealism are emotional rather than intel- 
lectual. 

Other causes have aided the triumph of music, such 
as the great improvement of musical instruments in an 
inventive and mechanical age. But the cause given 
above is the primary and comprehensive one. 

The supremacy of the novel in modern literature 
can also be now readily explained. For the very name, 
novel, is suggestive of the realistic element in art — 
of the delight in novelty, in variety of incidents, in 
mimicry of real life, in that restless play of ' 'fancy which 
loves to follow a long chain of circumstances from link 
to link." 

Another chief characteristic of the age is what a 
great critic calls "its mean and shallow love of jest 
and jeer;" and this is easily accounted for, by recall- 
ing our definition of the ludicrous. The passion for 
comicality is especially wide-spread in America, the 
most realistic of all countries. Burlesque and horse- 
play abound; but there can be no humor where there 
is no idealism. 

(6) Our social life also has been completely trans- 
formed. The devotion to secular interests, the fierce 
assertion of rights rather than duties, the passion for 
liberty, the ever changing whirlwind of innovations — 
all these are the familiar characteristics of the classi- 
cal spirit returned to earth again. 

Leaving the reader to pursue this plain parallelism 
between the classical and the modern age, I shall dwell 
only upon what is at once the most conspicuous and 



yS SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

the most unique feature of our social life. I mean, of 

course-, that great industrial movement which has 
brought such incalculable benefits to mankind. I [ardly 
any one will claim that the origin of this movement 
has ever been satisfactorily explained; and it our doc- 
trine is found to lull) account lor the mysterious dawn 
and the swift noon-tide: glory of modern industry, we 
may consider our work as triumphantly ended. 

The first great characteristic of modern industry is 
its motive. The love of wealth is, of course, natural 
to man; but only as one among many impulses. And 
the aim of the Middle Ages was to reduce this pas- 
sion to its minimum, by glorifying poverty and teach- 
ing men to despise the fleeting and illusory vanities 
of earth. It is the same in the Orient where Brahmin 
beggars or the mendicant monks of Buddhism stand 
at the summit of the social scale. Hut modern real- 
ism, sensuous, utilitarian, lias cast aside these ascetic 
ideas; it has developed the sordid passion into a mad- 
ness burning in the very bones of mankind. 

But why, it may be asked, did not the same spirit 
in antiquity attain to the same results? Because slav- 
ery rendered a true industrial system impossible; and 
therefore classical energy could find no outlet save in 
military life, plunder and prodigality. But since the 
mediaeval abolition of slavery, the economic impulse 
has had full room to run its course unchecked. In 
the singleness, the intensity and the ever increasing 
power of its motive; the modern industrial system is 
unlike any other social system ever founded upon the 
earth. 



CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 79 

Mechanical invention has been a second great factor 
in the industrial movement. A realistic age, unhamp- 
ered by slavery, is experimental, inductive, inventive; 
it*cares little for general principles and looks only to 
results. Mechanical genius abounds. And so by 
continued experiment, by minute attention to details 
and successive adaptation of means to a desired end, 
those wonder-working machines have been invented, 
which form the very bone and sinew of the industrial 
system. 

A third factor is specialization; and this has two 
causes. In the first place, realism attends minutely 
to details and has an antipathy to everything wide and 
comprehensive; in the second place, it fosters indi- 
vidualism, cuts away the restrictions of law, or custom 
or caste, and leaves men free to follow their special 
aptitudes. 

Fourthly, there is an ethical factor which has entered 
largely into industrial progress. As we have seen, 
realism tends to foster the practical virtues at the ex- 
pense of the religious ones. And it was this develop- 
ment of such homely virtues as prudence, veracity and 
justice, that has rendered possible that vast and com- 
plicated system of credit so essential to modern industry. 
It is strange to see how minutely historians have 
described the rise of this system in its external features, 
without giving the slightest thought to the moral 
causes upon which it depends. 

A fifth factor is liberty. Every one knows how 
much industrial progress owes to the removal of re- 
strictions like the mediaeval prohibition of usury, for 



80 SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

instance. It is a movement which appears to prosper 
most when regulated least. 

Such then is the philosophy of the industrial move- 
ment; in its every part it is seen to be a product of 
the realism which rules modern civilization. Observe 
furthermore how signally our law of exaggerated ten- 
dencies is verified here as everywhere. Each of these 
industrial factors, after having so grandly benefited 
mankind, has developed into fatal excesses — the 
greed of gain which tortures mankind, the mechanical 
habit which stunts the nobler energies of the soul, the 
division of labor which converts men into machines, 
the cold, calm morality of self-interest which is prov- 
ing to be a very Vesuvius of stony vices and red- 
hot passions. See, above all, how the passion for 
liberty, the struggle of individualism for its rights, has 
ended just as it did in antiquity, in industrial servi- 
tude — in a tyranny which does not beat or behead 
the unsubmissive, but merely starves them and their 
families. In a word, the stream of tendency which 
once enriched and rejoiced the earth has become a 
destroying flood. 

The whole world awaits a change. Everywhere 
there is the presage of a new reformatory movement 
which shall check this evil development and open up 
new paths of progress. And in this universal expect- 
ancy is the final and supreme verification of our doc- 
trine. For all genuine philosophy is but the scientific 
expression of what is vaguely felt by the common 
sense of mankind. 



CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 8 1 



CONCLUSION 



All science involves a certain degree of prevision. 
We have discovered the law of human progress: and, 
beyond all doubt, that law will rule so long as prog- 
ress continues. Every detail of our previous study 
has helped to demonstrate that the realistic impulse 
can lead henceforth to naught but evil; and therefore, 
the counter impulse must become supreme and begin 
its regenerating work. Not, by any means, that we 
will return to the dreams and torpor of the Middle 
Ages; humanity is not about to pass into a period of 
* 'second childhood." But the idealistic impulse, 
taught and chastened by the past, will once more hold 
sway over the human spirit. The search and rever- 
ence for causes will take the place of our present en- 
grossment with the superficial, the multifarious and 
the transitory. 

Let us see, so far as our narrow limits and the 
complexity of the phenomena to be investigated will 
permit, what the law of civilization promises for the 
future. 

In religion we shall have a new age of faith. But 
let me not be misunderstood: faith is not credulity or 
superstition. Nor is it the foe or even the rival of 
reason; the past antagonisms between the two have 
been engendered by mental one-sidedness and lack of 
balance. Faith is a moral impulse whose office it is 
to preserve the equipoise of the reason. For, the hu- 
man soul, weighed down by its connection with the 
body and the passions thereof, is ever inclined to take 
6 



82 SCIEN4 i: OF THOUGHT. 

the more superficial and sensuous view of things; and 
therefore there is always need of a certain moral ef- 
fort to keep the reason balanced and leave it free tor 
its highest work — tlic devout search for causes and 
eternal unity and order. True faith, then, is never 
the enemy of reason or does any violence to it; any 
more than one does violence to a bird when he opens 
her cage and lets her forth to sing and soar. 

Superstition is a disease of faith. But normal faith 
is ever the cause oi free inquiry. It was the idealistic 
faith of Copernicus and Kepler that led them to their 
great discoveries. ] And above all, he who does not 
take pains to keep his reason unclouded by sensuous- 
ness, will never have any deep interest or think wor- 
thily concerning spiritual things. 

A great moral regeneration is also impending. The 
ethics of duty and self-sacrifice will no longer be a 
mere sentiment, a pious profession : they will become 
the real standard of human conduct. Not that 
Comte's wild dream of altruism will ever be realized. 
Human nature will never be so transformed that men 
will live for others rather than for themselves ; so 
stupendous a miracle is neither to be expected nor de- 
sired. But the incoming of idealism will gradually 

( x ) Copernicus expressly avowed his obligations to the Pythagorean 
idealism. See De Revolutionibus Orbium Celestium. Lib. i , Cp j et 8. 

He was constantly inspired by his idealistic faith in the symmetry of 
the universe and the harmony of the celestial motions. So also Kep- 
ler, as see Forster. Kepler und die H<irmo>iie </er Spharen, j. Frisch 
in his edition says, "nam per haec studia immortalem suam tertiam 
"legem invenit quae proportiones illas simplicissime exprimit et New- 
"tonii de gravitatione doctrinae quasi fundamentum putandaest." 
{A'ep/eri Opera, Tom. VIII, p. ioij.) 



CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION. 83 

close the present chasm between the law of self-sacri- 
fice and that of self-interest. It will do so in three 
ways: first, it will teach men that even the present 
antagonism between the two principles is not so great 
as it superficially seems; that even now obedience to the 
universal law, — "the golden rule" — tends to promote 
the happiness of the individual, although too often this 
result fails through the interference of other causes. 
Secondly, it will weaken the sensuous motives and 
vastly strengthen the idealistic ones — the power of 
conscience and of the religious and social sentiments 
— and thus make self-sacrifice far more conducive to 
individual happiness. Thirdly, it will strive to so re- 
organize society that every man shall enjoy the reward 
of his own labors, that millions shall not bear the bur- 
dens in order that a few may reap the benefits. In 
that ideal state, the old contradiction between duty 
and self-interest will have vanished, virtue and hap- 
piness will be harmonized ; and the moral order of 
the universe will seem to all something more than an 
idle dream. 

Art, in its present estate, can well afford to wel- 
come any change — especially a change from mere play 
and mimicry to seriousness, imaginative power and 
depth of thought. Science, also, as we have already 
seen, stands in great need of a new out-burst of 
idealism. 

The character of the social regeneration to come 
has been foreshadowed in our previous survey. The 
trend of idealism, in the Orient, the Middle Ages, 
and the speculations of philosophy, has ever been 



S..| SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. 

towards solidarity, community of interests, the subor- 
dination <>1 rights tO duties, service, sacrifice. Its 
very aim is to unify or organize. And its triumph 
must inevitably lead us from an age of individualism 

to one of social and industrial organization. 

Hut let us remember that organization is not interfer- 
ence or restriction or suppression ; it is not a pr< 
from without compacting the many into one unre- 
sisting mass. It is a force acting from within ; and so 
far from interfering with, it is the cause of the diver- 
sity, the changing activity and the freedom of the 
parts. To this ideal the coming organization of 
industry will strictly conform. Every member of the 
industrial order will take part in the administration 
of its affairs, and all will cooperate towards its com- 
mon ends ; and the world-wide unity and regulated 
concert of action thus attained will produce a fuller 
liberty and a more joyous activity than human toil, 
heretofore, has ever dreamed of. 

These are but hints and vague outlines. The 
utmost power of the scientific imagination, even when 
guided by our demonstrated law, can do little more 
than to dream about the possibilities which are now 
beginning to open before mankind. This new age of 
faith, sacrifice and social order is like that new world 
which was first seen, just four hundred years ag( 
a little island in the ocean, and which even yet has 
not disclosed the full extent of its treasures and its 
promise. 

[THE END.] 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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